Little Falls transcript., 1887-04-15
THE LAST OF THE BuFFALOEs.

Not Over Six Hundred OF Them Left
in the United States.
I was told when F came here two
months ago that if wanted to find out
what was trustworthy concerning the
determination Of the buffalo, Captain
Jack Bridges was the man to see,
writes an El z aso correspondent Of The
Aew Yo7'k Sun. AS Bridges was then
hunting in the Seralers mountains in
Mex CO, I took the cars to Gallego,
where, through the courtesy of r. E.
Comfort; superintendent of the Mexican
Central railroad company, I was pro-
vitled with an inoffensive broncho to-
ride over to Bridges camp. some thir-
tyeight miles.
Captain Jack, who for years past has
been one of the most distin guishcd and
fearless hunters in the west, was the
! first man to make contract to provide
large number of buffalo hides. The
idea suggested itself to a pelt-dealing
firm in Leavenworth, Kansas, who sent
,, for Bridges, telling him to procure L.
200 hides at once, as they wished to try
, them in the English market. Bridges
signed the contract, ana hiring lot of
''sknners,' began his destructive war
fare against the bison. In five weeks
! and four days he killed with his own
| hand I, l43 butfaloes, and the hides of
! these animals constituted the first Ship
! ment of buffalo robes to Europe. While
! the contract was very lucrative, owing
/; to the great abundance of the animals,
! the slaughter disgusted Bridges, who
was q natural-born sportsman, SO much
that he refused to be instrumental in
| the future in any wholesale destruction
of good meat. He says that he has on
| ly been sorry but once for what he did,
and that has been ALWAYS. Since then
he has killed about six thousand head,
| but only when meat was required by
! the different expeditions for which he
was guide. Having shot buffalo from
British Columbia to Texas, and having
! lived for the last thirty-five years on
the great game ranges of the west he
is well qualified to speak authoritative
ly on the subject.
GAS far as 1 know" said Bridges,
when talking on the subject, land I
try to keep myself posted, there are not
over six hundred buffaloes left in the
United States. There are about two
hundred in the Yellowstone park, and
these will be sole survivors in year or
two. In the panhandle of Texas there
are about one hundred; these do not
include those on the ranch of Charley
Goodnight, who has a lot of them semi
domesticated. Goodnight's ranch is
near Vernon, in Armstrong county.
There are about one hundred and ten
in Kansas and Indian Territory, five or
six IN Colorado, ten in Montana, and
five in Dakota. The others are in a lit
tie herd in an out of-the-way place,
which do not wish made public.''
This, then, sums up the butlaloes
left?''
''Yes, though there may be y strag-
Cling pair or in southern Texas. | am
told that two old bulls were seen south
of San Antonio the other day, and that
they we're followed up and one killed.
But ! have been told twice recently,
once by an Apache and the other time
by Waco Indian, that on the big
plains, five hundred miles south of here,
in country but very rarely travelled.
there is a very large herd. I will know
soon, for am going down there this
spring. But the drought has been SO
severe in Mexico this season that the
game has suffered terribly, and has had
to travel many miles for WATER